Hedley Verity vs Clarrie Grimmett

[trundler]

Bill O'Reilly is generally considered to be the best interwar spinner owing to his supreme Ashes record and reputation as a fearsome bowler who troubled Bradman to an extent. The other 2 notable spinners from this period are Verity and Grimmett, both of whom also did relatively well when they marched up against Braddles. The great batsman did however consider Verity to be tougher to face and harder to pick. Both of them have very similar averages but their strike rates vary.

Grimmett took 216 wickets @ 24.21 in 37 tests with a strike of 67.1. Verity took 144 wickets in 40 tests @ 24.37 with a strike rate of 77.5. The difference in wickets per match is massive. Initially I thought this was down to Grum having an all time great series against a not-bad SA side in 1935/36 where he took 44 wickets in 5 tests @14.54. This was not the case. In Ashes tests his average shoots up to 32.4 (with a strike rate of 86.5) yet he still took 106 wickets in 22 games. Verity has a similar strike rate but a lower average of 28 yet he only took 59 wickets in 18 matches. He did have to face Bradman though so these returns are exceptional. The difference in WPM must then be down to how the 2 bowlers were used and the composition of the attacks they played with. Of course, one must keep in mind that with stats the surface can merely be scratched.

 

[a massive zebra]

Clarrie Grimmett is rather overrated on this forum IMO so he will probably win, but for me it is Verity comfortably.

1. Verity got Bradman out more times in Tests than anyone else in the 1930s, and averaged less than 60 against him, a really commendable record.
2. Grimmett's test bowing average is boosted by his dominance of the weaker teams. He had to work much harder for his wickets against England, averaging 32 against them. Verity was more successful against an Australian side including Bradman.
3. Verity once took 15 wickets in a single day against Australia. Grimmett never got close to this against England.
4. Verity's first class record is leagues ahead, averaging 14 against 22 by Grimmett. With only 6 Australian states as opposed to umpteen counties, perhaps the standard of batting in Australian first class cricket was higher and Grimmett certainly wouldn't have bowled on as many sticky wickets. But these factors did not stop O'Reilly achieving a similar first class record to Verity on the same pitches Grimmett played on. Also, if we consider English first class cricket only, Grimmett's first class record is still materially worse than Verity.
5. Grimmett's round arm action looks rather bizarre to the modern eye and Verity's beautiful easy action is much better to watch.
6. Verity was the better batsman.

 

[trundler]

Leggies generally tend to have lower strike rates in exchange for higher economy rates. With that in mind Verity's stats against Australia do look very impressive. I went through the series he played against Australia to see if the different attack composition theory holds water. The 31/32 is obviously noted for its use of pace bowling. In the next 3 series vs Australia (34, 36/37 and 38) England continued to use the likes of Farnes, Bowes, Voce and Allen whereas Australia relied heavily on its spin twins to get the job done.

I was hoping someone would find contemporary writeups about their bowling styles. So far we've only made deductions from stats.

 

[cnerd123]

His Cricinfo bio is already pretty comprehensive. Good additional reading is here:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2011/jul/12/the-spin-cricket-email-hedley-verity
https://www.wisden.com/almanack/hedley-verity-splendid-almanack

I rate him higher too. Better FC career, best bowler Bradman ever faced, and I just have a soft spot for left arm finger spinners in general.

 

[trundler]

Australian FC cricket was much more batting friendly though. Guys like Woodfull and Ponsford averaged like 70. There is also the fact that there are fewer teams and therefore fewer weak teams in the Shield. Even Warne's FC record isn't all that flash. IMO you can just look at the test careers by the 30s to come to a conclusion instead of relying on FC stats as you would for pre-WW1 players.

 

[trundler]

That said Verity's FC feats are ridiculous.

If anyone's got footage, please link it.

 

[a massive zebra]

Even Warne's FC record isn't all that flash.

Admittedly it is not particularly relevant to this discussion, but Warne's record in English first class cricket isn't that flash either. Averaged 27 in the county championship IIRC.

 

[ataraxia]

A few points:

Grimmett was said to be a better bowler in England than in Australia; him playing in Australia a lot would've affected his overall stats significantly. This doesn't bode in the stats though

Grimmett has the factor of longevity on his side, playing FC from the age of 17 to 50. Verity definitely doesn't, playing FC from 25 to 35.

All this talk about Verity vs Bradman fails to consider Grimmett's incredible FC record against Bradman. Grimmett got him 10 times out of 27 innings and in those 27 innings Bradman averaged a mere 63.3.

Grimmett got a 5WI in 51.2% of FC matches, most of them being Australian flat-tracks. Verity did so 43.4% of the time on more dangerous wickets that fit his style - a 40 wicket match was very common.

 

[mr_mister]

Grimmett's WPM is so epic, even against England who he averaged 32 against like was mentioned


Surely Verity actually playing alongside decent pace bowlers was a big factor here though, the wickets had to be shared more


Without checking I assume Grimmett probably bowled hundreds more overs than Verity despite the similar amount of matches played. Other than Mailey/Gregory(for a smidgen of tests at the start of his career) O'Reilly and Ironmonger I can barely think of any bowlers that would have taken too many wickets from him


Verity had to share with Larwood, Tate, Freeman, Bowes, Voce, Allen, Hammond

and of course there was a certain batsman he had to bowl to in tests that didn't give his wicket away too easily

 

[a massive zebra]

Grimmett's WPM is so epic, even against England who he averaged 32 against like was mentioned


Surely Verity actually playing alongside decent pace bowlers was a big factor here though, the wickets had to be shared more


Without checking I assume Grimmett probably bowled hundreds more overs than Verity despite the similar amount of matches played. Other than Mailey/Gregory(for a smidgen of tests at the start of his career) O'Reilly and Ironmonger I can barely think of any bowlers that would have taken too many wickets from him


Verity had to share with Larwood, Tate, Freeman, Bowes, Voce, Allen, Hammond

and of course there was a certain batsman he had to bowl to in tests that didn't give his wicket away too easily

Grimmett bowled an average of 392 balls per test, which is the highest of any bowler in history (min 10 Tests). Any talented leg spinner with Grimmett's arsenal of tricks is bound too pick up bucketloads of wickets if they bowl that much.

A few points:

Grimmett was said to be a better bowler in England than in Australia; him playing in Australia a lot would've affected his overall stats significantly. This doesn't bode in the stats though

Grimmett got a 5WI in 51.2% of FC matches, most of them being Australian flat-tracks. Verity did so 43.4% of the time on more dangerous wickets that fit his style - a 40 wicket match was very common.

Grimmett may have been a better bowler in England than Australia, but his best first class bowling average on any of his three tours of England was 17. Verity's entire career first class bowling average was less than 15.

As I stated above, Grimmett bowled a lot more overs than Verity because he had less competition for wickets. Hedley Verity's first class strike rate of 43 is actually much better than Clarrie Grimmett's 52, so Grimmett's higher frequency of 5WI was a product of bowling a lot more, rather than evidence of him being a more threatening prospect.

 

[a massive zebra]

Still, while Richardson and MacArtney rendered valuable assistance, the weight of the bowling fell upon Mailey and Grimmett. Wonderfully well as a rule did these two men--the one depending chiefly upon the googly, and the other upon his leg-break--acquit themselves day after day, but they were a strange pair to take the places which Gregory and Macdonald had filled in the Australian team of 1921. At times uncertain in pitch, Mailey, on occasion met with severe punishment, but when he found his length, there was no one, however high the class of the batting opposed to him, so likely to go through a side as he and in matches with the weaker elevens he enjoyed some remarkable triumphs. Against teams of note his best performances were the taking of eleven Lancashire wickets at Manchester, and fifteen Notts wickets at Trent Bridge. In the last Test match he secured nine wickets but at a very heavy cost.

A steadier bowler than Mailey, Grimmett had good reason to be gratified with the measure of success attending his efforts on the occasion of his first visit to this country. He took more than a hundred wickets for less than 18 runs apiece and with remarkable accuracy of pitch he proved no mean successor to Warwick Armstrong. In contrast to that famous player, he was rather under middle height, and he appeared somewhat slight in physique while a low delivery suggested that he must be easy to see, yet the average English batsman certainly found him difficult to score from and at times he kept his opponents pegged down to a very pronounced extent. He varied the leg-break with a quicker ball which generally came straight along and with this secured a good many wickets.

Well as Grimmett and Mailey performed their part and ably as these two men were at times assisted by Richardson and MacArtney there was nothing in the Australian attack, except when Mailey happened to be at the top of his form, to cause first-rate batsmen real anxiety. If a player declined to take risks, runs might be--and generally were--difficult to obtain, but no strong reason existed why he should lose his wicket. The Test matches furnished the big indictments. At Lord's, when once the England batsmen had gained the upper hand the bowling fell away so completely as to raise the question whether such poor work had ever before come from an Australian team in this country. At Leeds the pitch--a different one from that specially prepared for the occasion--was in its later stages, in a condition which the Australian bowlers ought to have been able to turn to account sufficiently to have forced a victory. Finally at the Oval on the third morning, superbly as Hobbs and Sutcliffe batted, the state of the wicket was such that first-rate bowling, used with judgement, could scarcely have missed pronounced success.

While the Australians undoubtedly owed much of their success to Bradman's batting, it cannot be denied that an almost equally potent factor in the overthrow of England was the bowling of Grimmett. Curiously enough, Grimmett did not in the victory at the Oval bear anything like the great part that he had done in the previous encounters but long before that he had established over most of the England batsmen an ascendancy which they never really overcame. He took twenty-nine wickets in the Test Matches, but his average of nearly 32 does not convey a real idea of his effectiveness. Taking part in no engagement other than first-class, Grimmett obtained 144 wickets at an average of less than 17 runs apiece and, in so doing, headed the bowling--a position he most thoroughly deserved. He started the season so well that when five matches had been played he had taken thirty-nine wickets, including all ten for 37 runs against Yorkshire at Sheffield. By the beginning of July he had dismissed over a hundred men, and although in August - probably owing to a bruised finger -- he accomplished nothing out of the ordinary, his bowling never lost its anxieties for English batsmen.

Grimmett's fame during the tour, however, will rest mainly upon his work in the Tests. At Nottingham he took ten wickets for 201 runs, at Lord's eight for 272, and at Leeds six for 168. At Manchester having 59 runs hit off nineteen overs he was unsuccessful, while at the Oval he dismissed five men at a cost of 225 runs. A bowler of his type must of necessity come in at times for severe punishment but, taking these contests as a whole and having regard to the fact that in those against counties and other combinations he was called upon for an immense amount of work, his share in the triumph of Australia could not be over-estimated or over-praised. Practically every time he went on he at once brought about a diminution in the rate of run-getting. Generally speaking, his length was flawless; even better than when he was here four years previously. To begin with he obtained most of his wickets with leg-breaks but as the season advanced he bowled the googly more often and he got plenty of batsmen leg before with a well disguised top-spinner.

CLARENCE VICTOR GRIMMETT, the famous Australian slow bowler, was born on December 25, 1892, at Dunedin, New Zealand. Something of a wanderer until his real merit was appreciated by the South Australian Cricket Association, Grimmett first jumped into real fame by his performances against the M.C.C. team under the captaincy of A.E.R. Gilligan in the winter of 1924-25.

Picked for the first time for Australia in the concluding Test match, he met with phenomenal success, taking in the two innings eleven wickets for 82 runs and having the biggest individual share in the defeat of England. Subsequently, when playing for South Australia, he dismissed seven of the Englishmen in the second innings for 85 runs.

From that time he never looked back, although on coming to England in 1926 his thirteen wickets in the five Test Matches cost nearly 32 runs apiece. Against the next M.C.C. side in Australia he obtained twenty-three wickets in Test Matches but was again expensive, his average being over 44 runs per wicket. During the visit of that combination he met with more success than any of his colleagues in representative engagements but his bowling seemed to have lost much of its former terrors for our men.

When the last Australian team for England came to be picked it was obvious that in the absence of any other bowler of similar type -- Mailey having given up the game -- he was bound to be chosen and, as it happened, he shared with Bradman the chief honours of the tour.

For a bowler of his attainments he did little in the last Test match but at Nottingham, Lord's and Leeds he accomplished very fine work indeed. The record of his achievements will be found in another part of the book, and it is sufficient to say here that at Nottingham he took ten wickets for 201 runs, at Lord's eight for 272, and at Leeds -- in which match he bowled probably better than in any other -- six of 168.

Altogether in the five Test Matches he dismissed twenty-nine England batsmen for just under 32 runs apiece, while in all first-class engagements he took a hundred and forty-four wickets for less than 17 runs each.

Grimmett, last season in England, was called upon for an immense amount of work and certainly during the first part of the summer he was the one bowler upon whom the Australians had to rely for definitely consistent skill. The wonder was that he did not break down under the strain. Had he proved unequal to the heavy call it is fairly certain the Australians would have gone back without the Ashes.

He felt the effect of his labours in August when a bruised finger handicapped him considerably, and whereas he took one hundred and twenty wickets to the end of July he obtained only another twenty-four in the last eight engagements in which he played. Still, reviewing the season as a whole, the value of his bowling to his side was incalculable.

But for the remarkable batting performances of Bradman, in the glamour of which Grimmett's effectiveness was apt to be overlooked, the South Australian would most likely have gone down to history as the outstanding success of the tour.

In style Grimmett recalled memories of the days of the old round-arm bowlers but, owing to a pronounced bend over the left hip when he delivered the ball, his right arm was not so low as it appeared to be.

Like all first-class slow leg-breakers he did not make the ball turn too much. He bowled the googly with a clever, disguise of intention, and one of his most successful deliveries was the top-spinner with which he got so many men leg-before. Above everything else, however, he kept a practically perfect length. Only on rare occasions did he send down a loose ball.

A pronounced feature of his attack could be seen in the skilful manner in which he lured a batsman by clever flighting without change of action. Nearly always when a hitter like Chapman went in, Grimmett would toss the ball in the air with a higher trajectory than usual.

Associated with three brothers of the name of Harris when he first played in a properly organised team for the Mount Cook Boys' School, at Wellington, Grimmett learned from them how to spin the ball and one of his teachers -- a Mr. Hempelman -- gave him much good advice but, generally speaking, he was as a youth a fast bowler.

The first time he bowled a leg-break in those early games he took a wicket but despite the fact that his teacher told him not to bowl fast any more he continued to do so and obtained seven wickets for three runs in a schools match for Wellington against Wairarapa.

Still Mr. Hempelman persevered with him and some remarkable successes showed Grimmett conclusively the value of slow bowling. Joining Wellington East he found that club so strong that he did not get a chance in their first eleven and he nearly gave up the game but it was in one of the matches for this team that he first bowled the "bosie" -- or, as we know it, the "googly". Five of the Wellington Central wickets fell and Grimmett took them all.

After that he was picked for and represented Wellington Province for three seasons. When he had just turned twenty he went to Sydney where after playing for Leichardt and Paddington he joined the Sydney Districts Cricket Club. Ultimately he reached grade cricket and in his first match obtained twelve wickets for 55 runs, being only second to A.J. Hopkins in the averages that season.

He left Sydney for Melbourne, playing for South Melbourne for three seasons and then joining Prahran. Just before this he appeared for Victoria against New South Wales at Sydney but failed to get a wicket. He did not play again for Victoria until the season 1923-24 when in the last match in the Sheffield Shield against South Australia at Adelaide, he took eight wickets for 86 runs in the second innings.

From Melbourne he journeyed on to Adelaide and in the opening Sheffield Shield match for South Australia against Victoria obtained nine wickets for 267 runs. In the inter-state games that season he dismissed twenty-eight men for rather more than 24 runs apiece.

During the Australian season of 1926-27 Grimmett did not accomplish much but a year later he met with pronounced success against New South Wales when he took eight wickets for 57 runs. In this game Bradman, making his first appearance in the Sheffield Shield competition, scored 118 and 33.

Without in the slightest degree disparaging the magnificent batting of the three great exponents, and the classic style of Brown, all of which contributed largely to the success of the side, it is permissable to hold strongly to the opinion that in the two Test matches they won Australia owed most to Grimmett and O'Reilly for keeping the English batsmen in subjection. Even in the two drawn games these two bowlers acquitted themselves in a manner never approached by any of their opponents. Bowes, it is true, had two inspiring spells at Leeds but looked very ordinary indeed - as he did at the Oval - when Bradman and Ponsford were engaged in their great partnership. Farnes, with five wickets in each innings, more than justified his inclusion in the opening Test match at Nottingham, but England did not possess either one or a pair of bowlers comparable, on fast wickets, with the two famous Australians. Both Grimmett and O'Reilly were, above all, masters of length and finger-spin and, while at Lord's and Manchester a large number of runs were obtained against them, they seldom, if ever, looked other than first-class. As was the case in 1930 Grimmett almost invariably brought about a marked diminution in the rate of run getting directly either of those who opened the attack, usually Wall and McCabe, was taken off to make way for him. In his flighting of the ball he was as skilful as ever; he made it turn just as effectively and, by its judicious employment, he brought into action a particular delivery at which he had practised assiduously before he left Australia. This ball, the effect of which was either a googly or one which sped off the pitch at pace with top-spin, came from his hand in a slightly different manner from that usually associated with the googly or top-spinner. Instead of coming over the little finger, it left the hand via the fore-finger, but with the action used in the ordinary googly, and as Grimmett very soon discovered it was exceedingly difficult of detection by the batsman. Naturally he kept this a very well-guarded secret and dismissed many men lbw with it and it is a matter of considerable doubt if any of our cricketers ever really found it out. Considering the amount of work he had to do during the season Grimmett maintained his form uncommonly well. He took 25 wickets in Test matches for just under 27 runs apiece, being second to O'Reilly, who had 28 wickets for rather less than 25 runs apiece. The other five bowlers who went on against England obtained between them only 18 wickets. In all first-class matches, Grimmett and O'Reilly each took the same number of wickets - 109 - O'Reilly's costing just over 17 runs each and Grimmett's a little under 20 runs apiece.

The fame of O'Reilly as a bowler had preceded his arrival and we were neither surprised at his success nor that he finished first in bowling both in Test matches and in all first-class engagements. Like Grimmett, he had a fine command of length and even if, after a somewhat lumbering run up, he sacrificed a little of the advantage of his great height by a pronounced stoop as he delivered the ball, this did not detract from his effectiveness. Possessing a large and powerful right hand, he wrapped his fingers round the ball with his wrist bent so that the ball almost touched the lower part of the inside of his forearm. He varied his pace without much apparent change of action and could make the ball turn either from the off or from leg, that which came from leg often being just a little faster than the other. He probably bowled no better ball the whole season than the one with which he dismissed Wyatt in that sensational over on the first day of the Test match at Manchester. The chief danger which lurked in O'Reilly's off-break was its lift. O'Reilly always had a forward short-leg and in the course of the season he obtained several wickets when batsmen, merely playing a backward defensive stroke, found the ball strike the bat in the neighbourhood of the splice, and pop up into the hands of the waiting fieldsman. Leyland and Ames at Lord's and Manchester and Hendren at Manchester punched O'Reilly with some freedom but taking the whole season through Walters drove him better than anybody else. O'Reilly was one of the best examples in modern cricket of what could be described as a hostile bowler.

In the first Test match at Nottingham O'Reilly took eleven wickets for 129 runs and Grimmett nine for 120; at Manchester O'Reilly obtained in the first innings seven wickets for 189 runs; at Leeds Grimmett took seven wickets for 129 and O'Reilly five for 134 and at the Oval Grimmett had eight for 167 and O'Reilly four for 161. At Lord's, in the one match Australia lost, Grimmett and O'Reilly took only one wicket each, but they both bowled very well. Outside the Test matches both these men accomplished some great performances. Each during the season claimed nine wickets in an innings on one occasion Grimmett, against Cambridge University and O'Reilly against Somerset when only 38 runs were hit from his bowling.

Born in Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand on Christmas Day, Clarence Victor Grimmett must have been the best Christmas present Australia ever received from that country. Going to Australia in 1914, on a short working holiday which lasted for 66 years, he joined the Sydney club, which had its headquarters at Rushcutters Bay. Three years in Sydney District cricket were sufficient to warn him that Arthur Mailey, another great spinner, had literally been given the green light towards the New South Wales team and all fields beyond. This, and marriage to a Victorian girl, took Grimmett to Melbourne, where he played with the South Melbourne club. During his six years in Melbourne he was given only three invitations to play for Victoria, the third of which was against South Australia when, providentially, he collected eight wickets.

It was after his visit to Sydney with the Victorians, for the first Shield match after the Great War, that I managed to see him for the first time. In Sydney, in the match against New South Wales, Ted McDonald had performed outstandingly for Victoria and was consequently the cynosure of all eyes when the Victorian team, on its way home to Melbourne, played an up-country match in the mountain city of Goulburn. Not quite all eyes, however. The attention of one pair, belonging to a thirteen-year-old boy named O'Reilly, was rivetted on a wiry little leg-spinner whose name on the local score-board was Grummett. To me, from that day onward, Grummett he remained, and my own endearing name for him throughout our later long association was Grum.

We played together for the first time in an Australian team at Adelaide against Herbie Cameron's South Africans in 1931, and for the last time in the Durban Test of 1936 when Vic Richardson's Australian side became the first ever to go through a tour undefeated - a feat paralleled by Bradman's 1948 team in England. On that 1935-36 South African tour, Grum set an Australian record for a Test series with 44 wickets, yet he came home to be dropped forever from the Australian side. He was shoved aside like a worn-out boot for each of the five Tests against Gubby Allen's English team in Australia in 1936-37 and he failed to gain a place in the 1938 team to England, led by Bradman.

It was illogical to assume that age was the reason for his discard. He was 47, it is true, when the touring side was chosen, yet two years later, at the age of 49, he established an Australian record of 73 wickets for a domestic first-class season. Which raises, rather pointedly, the question of why the hell was he dropped? By now Don Bradman was Grimmett's captain for South Australia, and also Australia's captain. As such he was an Australian selector, and Bradman, it seemed, had become inordinately impressed with the spin ability of Frank Ward, a former clubmate of his in Sydney. It was Ward who was chosen for the first three Tests against Allen's side in 1936-37 and who caught the boat for England in 1938. Bradman, it seemed had lost faith in the best spin bowler the world has seen. Grum's departure was a punishing blow to me and to my plans of attack. His diagnostic type of probing spin buttressed my own methods to such a degree that my reaction to his dismissal was one of infinite loss and loneliness.

Unlike Arthur Mailey, the first of the Australian spin trilogy of the inter-wars era, Grimmett never insisted on spin as his chief means of destruction. To him it was no more than an important adjunct to unerring length and tantalising direction. Grimmett seldom beat a batsman by spin alone. Mailey often did. I cannot remember Grimmett bowling a long-hop, whereas Mailey averaged one an over. So much, in fact, did inaccuracy become a feature of Mailey's success that he himself came to believe that it was an essential ingredient. Such wantonness was anathema to Grimmett, who believed that a bowler should bowl as well as he possibly could every time he turned his arm over. And Grimmett was perhaps the best and most consistently active cricket thinker I ever met.

He loved to tell his listeners that it was he who taught Stan McCabe how to use his left hand correctly on the bat handle - and I never heard Stan deny it. The flipper was originated by Grum during that Babylonian Captivity of his, and he used it to good effect in his record-breaking last season before the Second World War. He passed it on to men like Bruce Dooland and Cecil Pepper. He seldom bowled the wrong'un, because he preferred not to toss the ball high. On hard, true pitches he would bowl faster than his usual pace, taunting good batsmen to get to him on the half-volley. He was a genius on direction, and his talent for preying on a batsman's weakness was unequalled. He never let a batsman off the hook; once you were under his spell you were there to stay.

Grimmett joined South Australia from Victoria in 1923, just in time to bowl his way into the final Test in Sydney against Arthur Gilligan's 1924-25 England team. In his baptismal effort he took eleven wickets. In 79 Sheffield Shield games he tallied 513 wickets, an Australian record that will probably last for ever. The most successful Shield spinner in modern times, Richie Benaud, totalled 266 wickets in 73 matches, a relatively insignificant performance. Of Grimmett's 106 Test wickets against England, nearly 70 were collected on English pitches in a land where savants say leg-spinners are ineffective. One wonders what colossal figures he would have amassed had he played all his first-class cricket in England. Had he done so, you can be sure there would not be half the present insistence on pacier finger-cutting.

It was lucky for me that I preferred to bowl downwind, an unusual trait in a spinner's character. It allowed our partnership to develop and prosper. No captain ever had to worry which bowling end was whose. We competed strongly with each other and kept a critical eye on one another's performances. In Johannesburg in 1936, all-rounder Chud Langton hit me clean over the top of the square-leg grandstand of the old Wanderers ground. Cackling gleefully, Grum left no doubt in my mind that it was the biggest hit he had ever seen. Silently I was inclined to agree. In Clarrie's next over, Chud clouted him straight over the sightscreen and so far into the railway marshalling yards that the ball was never returned. From that delivery, until hostilities ceased for the afternoon, I never managed to get within earshot of my bowling mate.

Social life meant little to Grum. Not until late in his career did he discover that it was not a bad idea to relax between matches. In England in 1934 I bought him a beer in the Star Hotel in Worcester to celebrate his first ten wickets of the tour. It took him so long to sink it that I decided to wait for his return gesture till some other time on the tour. Later he told me, with obvious regret, that on previous tours he had been keeping the wrong company and had never really enjoyed a touring trip. That I thought was sad, but not half as sad as I felt when, at the very zenith of his glorious career, he was tipped out of business altogether. With Grum at the other end, prepared to pick me up and dust me down, I feared no batsman. Our association must have been one of cricket's greatest success stories of the twentieth century.

x

 

[AndrewB]

Checking the most regular bowlers alongside each of them (giving balls bowled, wickets & average), with spin bowlers starred for convenience:

*Grimmett: 14513: 216@24
*O'Reilly: 5404: 81@21
Tim Wall: 4572: 54@35
*Ironmonger: 3885: 67@16
McCabe: 2506: 28@36
Oxenham: 1802: 14@37
*Hornibrook: 1579: 17@39
Fairfax: 1520: 21@30

*Verity: 11173: 144@24
Farnes: 3644: 54@29
Allen: 3450: 69@27
Hammond: 3376: 33@42
Voce: 2514: 45@24
Bowes: 2451: 42@25
*Wright: 2032: 26@41
*Robins: 1677: 32@26
Clark: 1541: 24@31

(Hammond 1109, 29@18 and Tate 663, 8@21 are lower down the list; Freeman never actually played alongside Verity).

 

[a massive zebra]

HEDLEY VERITY, the Yorkshire left-handed slow bowler, who, if yet lacking the phenomenal skill of Wilfred Rhodes, is rightly regarded as the natural successor to that famous player, ought by reason of his birth-place to have cricket in his blood. He was born on May 18, 1905, at Headingley within a mile of the ground where so many great matches have taken place.

Verity has jumped to the front in his own class of bowling very quickly indeed, his career in first-class cricket having lasted so far less than two seasons.

He played first towards the end of May in 1930, at Huddersfield in the friendly match against Sussex and while, owing to another engagement, he could not secure a regular place in the eleven, he met with such success that he finished at the top of the Yorkshire bowling figures, taking fifty-two wickets for less than eleven and a half runs apiece.

In that year he accomplished some notable performances, obtaining nine wickets for 60 runs in the second innings against Glamorgan at Swansea, while against Hampshire at Bournemouth he dismissed thirteen batsmen for 83 runs, and in the return with Sussex at Brighton had nine wickets for 104 runs.

Such good work clearly demonstrated that Yorkshire, just as when Rhodes followed Peel, had at once found a fine left-handed bowler and last season Verity went right ahead. Again he was really top of the bowling figures with 138 wickets at an average of less than twelve and a half runs per wicket. Admittedly circumstances were in his favour because of the number of rain-affected wickets on which he had to bowl, but he took full advantage of the opportunities that came his way.

His outstanding performance during the season was at Leeds when, after taking three wickets for 61 runs in Warwickshire's first innings, he obtained all ten in the second for 36 runs. By a happy coincidence this success came to him on his birthday.

Other notable feats followed -- six for 32 against Somerset at Dewsbury, six for 11 against Surrey at Bradford, six for 21 and eight for 33 against Glamorgan at Swansea, and six for 52 and seven for 93 against Sussex at Brighton in his last county match. He played for the Players against the Gentlemen at Lord's and the Oval and later in the season enjoyed the distinction of being in the England team against New Zealand at the Oval and at Old Trafford.

There is no doubt that in once again carrying off the Championship, Yorkshire owed a great deal to the fine work accomplished by their left-hand bowler. Verity does not yet suggest the ability to flight the ball which was such a marked characteristic of Rhodes' bowling, but he has fine finger spin and accuracy of length, while now and again he sends down a faster ball which goes with his arm.

It is greatly in his favour that, unspoilt by success, he realises that he still has a good deal to learn, particularly in the subtle variation of his pace and flight which can only come by continuous practice. Happily he has avoided the fetish of the swerve.

In his boyhood he played for Yeadon and Guiseley Secondary Schools, and afterwards assisted Rawdon as an amateur in Yorkshire Council matches. His first professional engagement was in 1927 with Accrington in the Lancashire League, while in the following three years he played for Middleton in the Central League.

It was while he was with Middleton that he first appeared for Yorkshire. Previous to going to the two Lancashire clubs, he had, in 1926, been asked to appear at the nets at Leeds, where he came under the notice of George Hirst, and played on and off for the Yorkshire Second Eleven.

Verity is the first to acknowledge the debt he owes to Wilfred Rhodes for much valuable advice given at a time when it was most likely to be of the greatest service in helping him indeed to become one of the best left-hand slow bowlers of the day.

(Born May 18, 1905; died of wounds received in action, July 31, 1943)

Hedley Verity, Captain, The Green Howards, died of wounds a prisoner of war in Italy on July 31, 1943, some two months after his thirty-eighth birthday. He had been reported wounded and missing, and the news of his death came on September 1, exactly four years after he had played his last match for Yorkshire and, at Hove, taken seven Sussex wickets for nine runs in one innings, which finished county cricket before the war.

He received his wounds in the Eighth Army's first attack on the German positions at Catania, in Sicily. Eye-witnesses, who were a few yards from Verity when he was hit, have told the story. The objective was a ridge with strong points and pillboxes. Behind a creeping barrage Verity led his company forward 700 yards. When the barrage ceased, they went on another 300 yards and neared the ridge, in darkness. As the men advanced, through corn two feet high, tracer-bullets swept into them. Then they wriggled through the corn, Verity encouraging them with "Keep going, keep going". The moon was at their back, and the enemy used mortar-fire, Very lights and fire-bombs, setting the corn alight. The strongest point appeared to be a farm-house, to the left of the ridge; so Verity sent one platoon round to take the farmhouse, while the other gave covering fire. The enemy fire increased, and, as they crept forward, Verity was hit in the chest. Keep going, he said, and get them out of that farm-house. When it was decided to withdraw, they last saw Verity lying on the ground, in front of the burning corn, his head supported by his batman, Pte. Thomas Reynoldson, of Bridlington. So, in the last grim game, Verity showed, as he was so sure to do, that rare courage which both calculates and inspires.

His Bowling Art
Judged by any standard, Verity was great bowler. Merely to watch him was to know that. The balance of the run up, the high ease of the left-handed action, the scrupulous length, the pensive variety, all proclaimed the master. He combined nature with art to a degree not equalled by any other English bowler of our time. He received a handsome legacy of skill and, by an application that verged on scientific research, turned it into a fortune. There have been bowlers who reached greatness without knowing, or, perhaps, caring to know just how or why; but Verity could analyse his own intentions without losing the joy of surprise and describe their effect without losing the company of a listener. He was the ever-learning professor, justly proud yet utterly humble.

In the matter of plain arithmetic, so often torn from its context to the confusion of judgment, Verity, by taking 1,956 wickets at 14.87 runs each in ten years of first-class cricket, showed by far the best average during this century. In the recorded history of cricket the only bowlers of this class with lower averages are: Alfred Shaw, 2,072 wickets at 11.97 each; Tom Emmett, 1,595 wickets at 13.43 each; George Lohmann, 1,841 wickets at 13.73 each; James Southerton, 1,744 wickets at 14.30 each. It might be argued that during the period 1854 to 1898, covered by the careers of these cricketers, pitches tended to give more help to the bowler than they did during Verity's time. Verity, I know, for one, would not have pressed such a claim in his own favour. He never dwelt on decimals; and, while he enjoyed personal triumph as much as the next man, that which absorbed his deepest interest was the proper issue of a Test match with Australia or of an up-and-down bout with Lancashire; and if, in his country's or county's struggle towards victory, he brought off some recondite plot for the confounding, of Bradman or McCabe or Ernest Tyldesley or Edward Paynter, well, then he was happy beyond computing.

Notable Feats
Yet his bowling achievements, pressed into but overflowing the ten years of his career, were so rich and various that they here demand some concentrated notice:--

He played in 40 Tests matches, taking 144 wickets at 24.37 runs each. He took 100 wickets in Test cricket in a shorter period than any other English bowler.

He is the only cricketer who has taken 14 wickets in a day in a Test match, this feat being performed against Australia at Lord's in the second Test, 1934. During this match, he took 15 wickets for 104 runs, thus sharing with Wilfred Rhodes, his Yorkshire predecessor, the honour of taking most wickets in an Englandv. Australia match.

Twice he took all 10 wickets in an innings; in 1931, against Warwickshire at Headingley, Leeds, for 36 runs in 18.4 (6-ball) overs, 6 maidens; in 1932, on the same ground, against Nottinghamshire, for 10 runs in 19.4 (6-ball) overs, 16 maidens--a world record in first-class cricket for the fewest number of runs conceded by a bowler taking all 10 wickets in an innings, and it included the hat-trick.

Against Essex at Leyton, in 1933, he took 17 wickets in one day, a record shared only by C. Blythe and T. W. Goddard.

In each of his nine full English seasons he took at least 150 wickets, and he averaged 185 wickets a season; thrice consecutively (1935-36-37) he took over 200 wickets. His average ranged from 12.42 to 17.63. He headed the first-class English bowling averages in his first season ( 1930) and in his last ( 1939), and never came out lower than fifth.

How He Began
Verity was born at Headingley, but passed his twenty-fifth birthday before he played for Yorkshire, in 1930, the year that W. Rhodes retired. Some of his earlier seasons were spent in playing as an amateur for Rawdon in the Yorkshire Council; for Accrington in the Lancashire League; and for Middleton in the Central League. He was then, as always afterwards when allowed, an all-rounder. As a batsman, his height, reach, concentration and knowledge of what to avoid raised him distinctly from the ruck of mediocrity; but, whereas his bowling included grace, his batting had only style. The former was nature embellished by art; the latter was art improved by imitation.

As a bowler, Hedley Verity stands, and will stand, with his illustrious predecessors in the Yorkshire attack: Edmund Peate (1879-1887), Robert Peel (1882-1899), Wilfred Rhodes (1898-1930)--the dates indicate the time of their respective playing careers--but Verity was not a slow left-hander in the accepted sense, and he used to reject comparison with Rhodes so far as method was concerned, saying: both of us are left-handed and like taking wickets; let's leave it at that.

Verity's mean pace was what is called slow-medium; on fast pitches, often about medium; and he would send down an in-swinging yorker of an abrupt virulence not unworthy of George Hirst.

Naturally, on wet or crumbled or sticky pitches, he reduced pace and tossed the leg-spinner higher, but even here his variety of pace and of angle of delivery was remarkable. He was a born schemer; tireless, but never wild, in experiment; as sensitive in observation as a good host, or as an instrumentalist who spots a rival on the beat; the scholar who does not only dream, the inventor who can make it work.

Comparison of Giants
Just how good a bowler was he? In relation to rivals in his own craft but of an earlier day, such a question is useless except to amuse an idle hour or to excite an idle quarrel. We can only say that, in his own short time, he was the best of his kind. In England, day in and day out, he may never have quite touched the greatness of Robert Peel, Colin Blythe or Wilfred Rhodes. In Australia, neither in 1932-3 or 1936-7, did he perplex their batsmen quite as J. C. White perplexed them in 1928-29, but, as a workman-artist, he will take some beating. H. B. Cameron, that fine wicket-keeper -batsman of South Africa, playing against Yorkshire in 1935, hit him for three fours and three sixes in one over; but very rarely did a batsman survive a liberty taken with Verity. He had, besides, a wonderful skill in restoring the rabbits, early and with little inconvenience, to the hutch.

If a touchstone of Verity's greatness be needed, there is D. G. Bradman, the most inexorable scorer of runs that cricket has yet seen, whose Test match average against England stands at 91.42 in 46 innings. I think it was Verity who kept that average under 150. He was one of only three or four bowlers who came to the battle with Bradman on not unequal terms (haud impar congressus!); and Bradman was reported as saying: I think I know all about Clarrie ( Grimmett), but with Hedley I am never sure. You see, there's no breaking-point with him.

Beating the Best
Verity timed his blows. In the fifth Test match, at Sydney, early in 1933, Australia, 19 runs on the first innings, lost Victor Richardson for 0. Woodfull and Bradman added 115; Larwood, injured, had left the field--and that particular Larwood never came back--then Verity deceived Bradman in flight, bowled him for 71 and went on to take five for 33 in 19 overs and win the match. In the earlier Tests, amid the fast bowling and the clamour, not much had been heard of Verity, except as a rescuing batsman. But, when the last pinch came, there he was to relieve the weary line; very Yorkshire.

Verity never allowed the opinion that Bradman was less than a master on damaged pitches, refusing to stress the evidence of his own triumph at Lord's in 1934 ( Bradman c and b Verity 36; c Ames b Verity 13) and referring to Bradman's two innings of 59 and 43 in 1938 against Yorkshire at Sheffield. It was a pig of a pitch, he said, and he played me in the middle of the bat right through. Maybe Verity's opinion of Bradman was heightened by a natural generosity in its giver, but on this matter I think that Verity had reason to know best.

As an all-round fielder, Verity was no more than sound, but to his own bowling, or at backward point, he sometimes touched brilliance; and there sticks in the memory the catch that he made at Lord's in 1938, when McCabe cut one from Farnes crack from the bat's middle.

Opened England Batting
As a batsman for Yorkshire, Verity was mostly kept close to the extras. His build and reach suggested power and freedom, but it remained a suggestion; and he was analogous to those burly golfers who prod the tee-shot down the middle to a prim 180 yards. A casual observer might have mistaken Verity for Sutcliffe a little out of form, for he seemed to have caught something of that master's style and gesture, and, like Sutcliffe, he could be clean bowled in a manner that somehow exonerated the batsman from all guilt. He never quite brought off the double, though in 1936 he took 216 wickets and scored 855 runs. But he had the sovereign gift of batting to an occasion. In the 1936-37 visit to Australia, G. O. Allen could find no opening pair to stay together, so he sent in Verity with C. J. Barnett in the fourth Test, at Adelaide, and they put up partnerships of 53 and 45. Not much, perhaps; but the best till then. In all Test matches, his batting average was close on 21; nearly 3 units higher than his average in all first-class cricket.

Verity had the look and carriage of a man likely to do supremely well something that would need time and trouble. His dignity was not assumed; it was the natural reflection of mind and body harmonised and controlled. He was solid, conscientious, disciplined; and something far more. In all that he did, till his most gallant end, he showed the vital fire, and warmed others in its flame. To the spectator in the field he may have seemed, perhaps, a little stiff and aloof; but among a known company he revealed geniality, wit, and an unaffected kindness that will not be forgotten.

There was no breaking-point with Verity; and his last reported words: Keep going, were but a text on his short and splendid life.

HEDLEY VERITY WITH THE BALL
ALL FIRST-CLASS MATCHES
Season Runs Wickets Average
1930 795 64 12.42
1931 2,542 188 13.52
1932 2,250 162 13.88
1932-33 ( Australia) 698 44 15.86
1932-33 ( New Zealand) 64 1 64.00
1933 2,553 190 13.43
1933-34 ( India) 1,180 78 15.12
1934 2,645 150 17.63
1935 3,032 211 14.36
1936 ( Jamaica) 360 16 22.50
1936 2,847 216 13.18
1936-37 ( Australia) 1,043 38 27.44
1937 3,168 202 15.68
1938 2,476 158 15.67
1938-39 ( South Africa) 937 47 19.93
1939 2,509 191 13.13
TOTAL 29,099 1,956 14.87

COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP MATCHES
Season Runs Wickets Average
1930 595 52 11.44
1931 1,703 138 12.34
1932 1,856 135 13.74
1933 1,826 153 11.93
1934 1,210 79 15.31
1935 2,196 161 13.63
1936 1,942 153 12.69
1937 2,270 157 14.45
1938 1,523 111 13.72
1939 2,095 165 12.69
TOTAL 17,216 1,304 13.20

BOWLING SUMMARY
Runs Wickets Average
IN ENGLAND
Yorkshire (County Championship) 17,216 1,304 13.20
Yorkshire (Others Matches) 4,150 254 16.33
Tests (v. Australia) 930 38 24.47
Tests (v. South Africa) 250 12 20.83
Tests (v. West Indies) 207 9 23.00
Tests (v. New Zealand) 166 6 27.66
Tests (v. India) 228 15 15.20
Gentlemen v. Players 515 27 19.07
Other First-Class Matches 1,155 67 17.23
IN AUSTRALIA
Tests 726 21 34.57
Other First-Class Matches 1,015 61 16.80
IN SOUTH AFRICA
Tests 552 19 29.05
Other First-Class Matches 385 28 13.75
IN NEW ZEALAND
Tests 64 1 64.00
IN INDIA
Tests 387 23 16.82
Other First-Class Matches 793 55 14.41
IN JAMAICA
First-Class Matches 360 16 22.50
TOTAL 29,099 1,956 14.87

10 WICKETS IN AN INNINGS
10 for 36 Yorkshire v. Warwickshire, at Leeds 1931
10 for 10 Yorkshire v. Nottinghamshire, at Leeds 1932
9 WICKETS IN AN INNINGS
9 for 60 Yorkshire v. Glamorgan, at Swansea 1930
9 for 44 Yorkshire v. Essex, at Leyton 1933
9 for 59 Yorkshire v. Kent, at Dover 1933
9 for 12 Yorkshire v. Kent, at Sheffield 1936
9 for 48 Yorkshire v. Essex, at Westcliff 1936
9 for 43 Yorkshire v. Warwickshire, at Leeds 1937
9 for 62 Yorkshire v. M.C.C., at Lord's 1939
8 WICKETS IN AN INNINGS
8 for 33 Yorkshire v. Glamorgan, at Swansea 1931
8 for 39 Yorkshire v. Northamptonshire, at Northampton 1932
8 for 47 Yorkshire v. Essex, at Leyton 1933
8 for 43 England v. Australia, at Lord's 1934
8 for 28 Yorkshire v. Leicestershire, at Leeds 1935
8 for 56 Yorkshire v. Oxford University, at Oxford 1936
8 for 40 Yorkshire v. Worcestershire, at Stourbridge 1936
8 for 42 Yorkshire v. Nottinghamshire, at Bradford 1936
8 for 80 Yorkshire v. Sussex, at Eastbourne 1937
8 for 43 Yorkshire v. Middlesex, at Kennington Oval 1937
8 for 38 Yorkshire v. Leicestershire, at Hull 1939
17 WICKETS IN A MATCH
17 for 91 Yorkshire v. Essex, at Leyton 1933
15 WICKETS IN A MATCH
15 for 104 England v. Australia, at Lord's 1934
15 for 38 Yorkshire v. Warwickshire, at Bradford 1936
15 for 129 Yorkshire v. Oxford University, at Oxford 1936
15 for 100 Yorkshire v. Essex, at Westcliff 1936
14 WICKETS IN A MATCH
14 for 54 Yorkshire v. Glamorgan, at Swansea 1930
14 for 83 Yorkshire v. West Indies, at Harrogate 1933
14 for 78 Yorkshire v. Hampshire, at Hull 1935
14 for 132 Yorkshire v. Sussex, at Eastbourne 1937
14 for 92 Yorkshire v. Warwickshire, at Leeds 1937
14 for 68 Yorkshire v. Glamorgan, at Bradford 1939
13 WICKETS IN A MATCH
13 for 83 Yorkshire v. Hampshire, at Bournemouth 1930
13 for 97 Yorkshire v. Warwickshire, at Leeds 1931
13 for 145 Yorkshire v. Sussex, at Hove 1931
13 for 102 Yorkshire v. Northamptonshire, at Leeds 1933
13 for 97 Yorkshire v. Leicestershire, at Leeds 1935
13 for 107 Yorkshire v. Hampshire, at Portsmouth 1935
13 for 88 Yorkshire v. Worcestershire, at Stourbridge 1936
12 WICKETS IN A MATCH
12 for 117 Yorkshire v. Glamorgan, at Swansea 1930
12 for 74 Yorkshire v. Nottinghamshire, at Leeds 1932
12 for 53 Yorkshire v. Derbyshire, at Hull 1933
12 for 137 Yorkshire v. Kent, at Dover 1933
12 for 96 Yorkshire v. M.C.C., at Lord's 1935
12 for 114 Yorkshire v. Leicestershire, at Hull 1939
12 for 85 Yorkshire v. M.C.C., at Lord's 1939
11 WICKETS IN A MATCH
11 for 69 Yorkshire v. Derbyshire, at Leeds 1932
11 for 74 Yorkshire v. Essex, at Dewsbury 1933
11 for 92 Yorkshire v. Middlesex, at Lord's 1933
11 for 153 England v. India, at Madras 1933-34
11 for 73 Yorkshire v. Middlesex, at Leeds 1935
11 for 111 Yorkshire v. Glamorgan, at Swansea 1936
11 for 90 Yorkshire v. Nottinghamshire, at Bradford 1936
11 for 181 Yorkshire v. M.C.C., at Scarborough 1937
11 for 88 Yorkshire v. Cambridge University, at Cambridge 1938
11 for 66 M.C.C. v. Griqualand West, at Kimberley 1938-39

HEDLEY VERITY WITH THE BAT
ALL FIRST-CLASS MATCHES
Innings Not Outs Runs Highest Innings Average
1930 14 3 164 32 14.90
1931 25 6 234 28 12.31
1932 33 7 494 46 19.00
1932-33 ( Australia) 17 3 300 54* 21.42
1932-33 ( New Zealand) (did not bat)
1933 42 6 620 78* 17.22
1933-34 ( India) 18 4 384 91* 27.42
1934 41 11 520 60* 17.33
1935 45 8 429 35 11.59
1936 ( Jamaica) 4 0 195 101 48.75
1936 41 14 855 96* 31.66
1936-37 22 2 180 31 9.00
1937 37 14 335 76 14.56
1938 34 11 385 45* 16.73
1938-39 ( South Africa) 12 2 245 39 24.50
1939 30 15 263 54 17.53
Complete Batting Figures 415 106 5,603 101 18.13

COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP MATCHES
In all Yorkshire matches Verity scored 3,883 runs, average 17.89.

Innings Not Outs Runs Highest Innings Average
1930 11 2 133 32 14.77
1931 18 3 183 28 12.20
1932 25 4 384 36* 18.28
1933 36 3 572 78* 17.33
1934 22 4 309 38 17.16
1935 28 3 256 35 10.24
1936 29 9 535 89 26.75
1937 24 9 229 76 15.26
1938 20 5 176 41 11.73
1939 27 13 248 54 17.71
TOTAL 240 55 3,025 89 16.35
In all Yorkshire matches Verity scored 3,883 runs, average 17.89.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENTS
1. During his career (1930-39) Hedley Verity took 1,956 wickets at a cost of 14.87 runs apiece; scored 5,603 runs, average 18.13; and made 238 catches.

2. Verity played in 40 Test matches, taking 144 wickets for 24.37 runs each, and scoring 669 runs at an average of 20.90.

3. Verity took 100 wickets in Test cricket in a shorter period than any other English bowler.

4. He is the only cricketer who has taken 14 wickets in a day in a Test match, this feat being accomplished against Australia at Lord's in 1934. During this match he took 15 wickets for 104 runs, thus sharing with Wilfred Rhodes, his Yorkshire predecessor, the honour of taking most wickets in an England v. Australia match.

5. Twice Verity took all ten wickets in an innings. His 10 wickets for 10 runs for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire at Leeds in 1932 is a world record for the fewest number of runs conceded by a bowler taking 10 wickets, and it included the hat-trick. Full analysis was 19.4-16-10-10. In his last three overs he took seven wickets for three runs. The next best average recorded for 10 wickets is 10 for 18 runs by G. Geary for Leicestershire against Glamorgan at Pontypridd in 1929. In seven other innings Verity took nine wickets.

6. Against Essex at Leyton in 1933, 17 wickets fell to him in one day--a record shared with Colin Blythe and Tom Goddard.

7. Verity started County Championship cricket at Hull on May 31, 1930, against Leicestershire, taking in the match eight wickets, four for 15 runs in the second innings; and finished at Hove on September 1, 1939, the last day of county cricket before war began, with this remarkable analysis: 6-1-9-7. His first-class debut for Yorkshire was in a friendly against Sussex on May 21, 1930.

8. In each of his nine full English seasons he took at lest 150 wickets, and his average was 185 wickets per season; three times consecutively he took over 200 wickets in a season (1935-36-37).

9. In each of his ten seasons of first-class cricket Verity's average ranged form 12.42 to 17.63, in 1930 and 1934 respectively. He headed the English bowling averages in his first season, a feat which he accomplished again in 1939, and he never came out lower than fifth, twice being second, five times third, and once fifth. In his nine full English seasons his wickets ranged form 150 to 216.

10. In 1936, Verity took his 100th wicket in first-class cricket as early as June 19--a record for a Yorkshireman, though J. T. Hearne ( Middlesex) in 1896 took his 100th wicket on June 12. In 1931, C. W. L. Parker ( Gloucestershire) equalled this, and next day A. P. Freeman (Kent) completed 100 wickets.

11. Verity bowled 766 balls in two innings at Durban in the final Test match against South Africa in March, 1939--a record number of balls by one bowler in a match. This match was the longest ever played--drawn after ten days.

12. Verity scored only one century in first-class cricket--for Yorkshire against Jamaica at Sabina Park, Jamaica, in 1936

13. At Adelaide, in January 1937, he opened the batting with C. J. Barnett, and scored 19 out of 53 for the first wicket, the best start to an innings for England in the first four Tests of that rubber.

14. Verity's best all-round season was in 1936, when he took his greatest number of wickets, 216; and made his highest aggregate of runs, 855.

15. During Verity's ten years Yorkshire won the County Championship seven times; in six of these seasons Brian Sellers led the team.

The Best Bowler this Century
According to the list in 1940 Wisden of bowlers who have taken 1,500 wickets, Hedley Verity, with 1,956 wickets in ten years at 14.87 each, showed by far the best average during this century, and in the history of cricket the only bowlers of this class showing lower averages are:--

Alfred Shaw, 2,072 wickets at 11.97 in 34 years.
Tom Emmett, 1,595 wickets at 13.43 in 23 years.
George Lonmann, 1,841 wickets at 13.73 in 15 years.
James Southerton, 1,744 wickets at 14.30 in 22 years.
As the careers of these four famous professionals extended from the year 1854, when Shaw began, to 1898, when Lohmann finished, their remarkable records were achieved during an era when bowlers received far more help from the pitches than was the case during the period in which Verity earned such great reward for his skill.

Four Great Yorkshiremen
Of slow left-handers comparable with Verity as England players, his three predecessors of similar type in the Yorkshire eleven stand out:--

Edmund Peate (1879 to 1887), 1,063 wickets at 13.86.
Robert Peel (1882 to 1899), 1,754 wickets at 16.21.
Wilfred Rhodes (1898 to 1930), 4,188 wickets at 16.71.
Hedley Verity (1930 to 1939), 1,956 wickets at 14.87.
These four Yorkshiremen excelled through a period of sixty-one years.

Other Notable Exponents
Other slow left-handers of this category in chronological order have been:--

John Briggs, Lancashire (1879 to 1900), 2,200 wickets at 16.10.
Colin Blythe, Kent, killed in the last war on November 8, 1917, aged 38 (1899 to 1914), 2,506 wickets at 16.81.
C. W. L. Parker, Gloucestershire (1903 to 1935), 3,278 wickets at 19.48.
Frank E. Woolley, Kent (1906 to 1938), 2,068 wickets at 19.86.
J. C. White, Somerset (1909 to 1937), 2,358 wickets at 18.56.

The present war has already taken heavy toll of gallant men who, after faithfully serving their countries on the cricket field in peace-time, have laid down their lives for a greater cause. Of those who have fallen Hedley Verity was perhaps the most illustrious and from the Dominion of Australia I feel it my sad duty to join with cricketers of the Motherland in expressing sorrow that we shall not again see him on our playing fields.

It could truthfully be claimed that Hedley Verity was one of the greatest if not THE greatest left-hand bowler of all time. Most certainly he could lay just claim to that honour during the 1918-1939 period. No doubt his Yorkshire environment was of great asssistance for left-hand bowling seems to be in the blood of Yorkshiremen. It is one of their traditions and inalienable rights to possess the secrets of the art.

Although not a young man from a cricketing standpoint when the call came, Verity was little if any beyond the zenith of his powers. He was always such a keen student of the game, and his bowling was of such a type, that brains and experience played a greater part in his successes than natural genius.

Although opposed to him in many Tests, I could never claim to have completely fathomed his strategy, for it was never static nor mechanical.

Naturally he achieved his most notable successes when wickets were damp. Nobody privileged to witness that famous Test at Lord's in 1934 (least of all the Australian batsmen) will forget a performance to which even the statistics could not do justice. But it would be ungenerous to suggest that he needed assistance from the wicket, as his successful Australian tours will confirm. The ordinary left-hander who lacks the vicious unorthodox finger-spin of the Fleetwood-Smith variety, needs uncommon ability to achieve even moderate success in Australia, yet Verity was the foundation stone of England's bowling in both countries during this era.

Apart from his special department of the game, Verity could also claim to be a remarkably efficient fieldsman close to the wicket where safe hands and courage are greater attributes than agility. Add this to the fact that once he opened a Test match innings for England, not without success, and we have a fairly general picture of a really fine player.

Those of us who played against this swarthy, capless champion (I never remember having seen him wear a cap) probably appreciated his indomitable fighting spirit even more than his own colleagues. We knew, when war came, that he would plainly see his duty in the same way as he reagrded it his duty to win cricket matches for Yorkshire no less than England.

During our association together I cannot recall having heard Verity utter a word of complaint or criticism. If reports of his final sacrifice be correct, and I believe they are, he maintained this example right to the end.

His life, his skill, his service all merited the highest honour, and with great sorrow I unhesitatingly pay humble tribute to his memory.

My association with Hedley began during my first game for Yorkshire second eleven at Middlesborough in 1930. Being new to that type of cricket, I kept a watchful eye on what was going on and the fellows with whom I was playing. Our "skipper", Brigadier R. C. Chichester-Constable, D. S. O., duly introduced me to all the team , and my first imnpressions of Hedley were that he was a very quiet type of man who did not say very much but had a great sense of humour.

At that time he played for the first eleven when Rhodes was not available, and at the end of the season he topped the English bowling averages. There was nothing in his conversation to lead anyone into thinking that he had ever played for the first team. However, as the game progressed I kept my eye on him and found him to be quite casual about everything he did. There was no fuss; he just got on with the game. An occasional appeal to the umpire; if it was refused he made no signs whatsoever as to what he thought about it.

I came away from that game thinking that there was a man who would not be driven by anyone into doing anything that he did not want to do, and how true that turned out to be. When I became "skipper" of the first eleven I found that Hedley would work hard all day and every day in his own little way, no fuss or hurry or rush. If you studied his bowling action closely, that gave you an insight to his character - steady even, coupled with determination.

I look back upon my cricketing days with Hedley and find that he never really changed from the Hedley I first met at Middlesborough on that June day. His advice was sound and good. He was prepared to sit and talk with anyone on most subjects, and of course, like most of us, would talk cricket all day and night. His bowling always improved, and, as we all know, he played for England so often that he became an automatic choice like Hobbs and Sutcliffe in their day.

His character and disposition never changed amidst all his many triumphs; he just remained Hedley Verity. On many occasions, in order to win a match, I turned to him and said "Well Hedley, everything depends on you." That was sufficient; although he might be very tired indeed, his determination to help the side win was something to wonder at. If I had given him a direct order, a lot of that determination would not have come to the fore. It was not his nature to be ordered about, although he never gave any outward sign of resentment. His answer was to keep going along in his own sweet way. He knew what he could do and what he could not do.

Hedley lost his life playing a game of war, and I can guarantee that as he lay wounded on the battlefield in Sicily the grim determination to go forward prevailed more than ever before. His death draws a line under his name and the finish to a remarkable cricket career. England and Yorkshire lose a great player and I a great friend. I feel honoured to have met and played with him.

y

 

[a massive zebra]

Checking the most regular bowlers alongside each of them (giving balls bowled, wickets & average), with spin bowlers starred for convenience:

*Grimmett: 14513: 216@24
*O'Reilly: 5404: 81@21
Tim Wall: 4572: 54@35
*Ironmonger: 3885: 67@16
McCabe: 2506: 28@36
Oxenham: 1802: 14@37
*Hornibrook: 1579: 17@39
Fairfax: 1520: 21@30

*Verity: 11173: 144@24
Farnes: 3644: 54@29
Allen: 3450: 69@27
Hammond: 3376: 33@42
Voce: 2514: 45@24
Bowes: 2451: 42@25
*Wright: 2032: 26@41
*Robins: 1677: 32@26
Clark: 1541: 24@31

(Hammond 1109, 29@18 and Tate 663, 8@21 are lower down the list; Freeman never actually played alongside Verity).

Two Hammond's? I'm only aware of the great Gloucestershire batsman who bowled medium pace.

 

[the big bambino]

Clarrie Grimmett is rather overrated on this forum IMO so he will probably win, but for me it is Verity comfortably.

1. Verity got Bradman out more times in Tests than anyone else in the 1930s, and averaged less than 60 against him, a really commendable record.
2. Grimmett's test bowing average is boosted by his dominance of the weaker teams. He had to work much harder for his wickets against England, averaging 32 against them. Verity was more successful against an Australian side including Bradman.
3. Verity once took 15 wickets in a single day against Australia. Grimmett never got close to this against England.
4. Verity's first class record is leagues ahead, averaging 14 against 22 by Grimmett. With only 6 Australian states as opposed to umpteen counties, perhaps the standard of batting in Australian first class cricket was higher and Grimmett certainly wouldn't have bowled on as many sticky wickets. But these factors did not stop O'Reilly achieving a similar first class record to Verity on the same pitches Grimmett played on. Also, if we consider English first class cricket only, Grimmett's first class record is still materially worse than Verity.
5. Grimmett's round arm action looks rather bizarre to the modern eye and Verity's beautiful easy action is much better to watch.
6. Verity was the better batsman.

Except Verity played against those same weaker teams and more often. Grimmett played 60% of his matches against his strongest opponent. (Consider Warne's average if he played 60% of games against India). So I think your comment about Grimmett and weaker opponents actually stands in his favour in a comparison. He'd averaged around 20 or 21 if his games were more fairly split between weaker and stronger opponents. Grimmett wins this one handsomely imo. Though i do have a preference for leggies and I hope my parochialism isn't being too influential.

 

[Line and Length]

I'll go along with Bradman here and say Verity. His first-hand experience outweighs any opinions expressed here.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Didn't Bradman famously have a bit of feud with Grimmett? It was speculated that Bradman had a big part in ending his career years earlier than it should have been.

If that's the case I wouldn't take everything Bradman said about him at face value

 

[the big bambino]

Yeah that's the story. What is disappointing is that Bradman defended his dropping of Grimmett almost to the end of his life when it was clear it was his biggest selection blunder. Bradman actually and indirectly admitted his error when he reverted to Grimmett as his preferred spinner in the last shield season before the war, over Ward - the man for whom he dropped Grimmett. That is more a more telling admission than all of his justifications.

 

[a massive zebra]

But Bradman wasn't the only top contemporary batsman to rank Verity higher. For instance, in his biography of Walter Hammond, Ronald Mason reported that Hammond considered O'Reilly and Verity to be the two best spinners he played against.

 

[stephen]

The problem with first hand testimony is that you end up getting players rating the guys they found tough higher than the guys who were more generally good. A case in point was the praise lavished upon harmison in Waugh's autobiography.

Grimmett and Verity are close but I'd take Grimmett since it's likely that he would be better in the modern game on unfavourable pitches than Verity.